I poke the body with a stick. Ha-ha. The stick is an elongated yardstick I found atop the metal frame of a dry-erase board. They use the boards to teach the kids about commerce. Commerce is very important to me. The bad kids learn from the good kids, either type is fine to me. They are cogs, they are capital. Everything is capital. The body has been lying under the desk for twelve minutes. Thirteen minutes. I poke the body with a stick. Ha-ha. Even with the eyes of my grandfather I can make out the little cysts on his face.

He died because he didn’t make it in the world on his own. Independence is key! Everything is independence—in independence is everything. Independence is understanding your relationship with the world and in understanding how you can better help the world through profit. The people’s understanding of business is through profit and loss. I’ve manipulated the system. I am only profit. This body was only loss. I took him out of the business—I took the business out of him.

My eyes are my grandfather’s eyes. I had my eyes removed. I had a diabetic reaction that altered my vision. They told me replacing my eyes wouldn’t help, but I replaced my eyes and it helped. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know anything. My grandfather is the smartest man I ever knew, the wisest man I ever knew. He was a stockbroker, he was a god. He was God. He told me the things I had to understand, and now I understand them. I didn’t understand then the way of business, or the way of life. The same thing—life and business. They feed off each other until they are each other.

I spit on the body’s face. I poke it with the stick again, then I put the stick away. He was a tragedy, I find tragedy in these people. These people make me sad, I don’t mean to condescend them because they are different from me. It is true sadness, not condescension. I am truly sad when I see these people who do not stand atop the mountains of success as I have, and I am truly sad when I see these people who do not function as a cog for the successful. I am a great success because I never take loss, he has passed on because he never made profit. We diametrically oppose one another, me and those of his ilk. They are poor in mind and spirit—and their wallets empty.

I do not accumulate wealth to buy things, I do not accumulate wealth to live lavishly, I do not accumulate wealth to help myself or the world around me. Accumulation is the flow of the universe and, for no good and for no bad, the money must flow. My grandfather told me of the ornate halls that furnished the minds of the successful. My mind is a mansion with a twelve-car garage. My brain sits atop a gold toilet, which flushes its indiscretions into my grandfather’s eyes. I use those indiscretions to see. Commerce is very important to me.

“This desk isn’t what I expected. Desks aren’t what I expected. I don’t expect terrorism. Nobody expects me to expect that.”

No one replies.

“I will not do poorly or sell things to children. I will not buy gold or expect anyone else to. I expect other people to sell it, or convince children to.”

No one replies.

“I enjoy commerce. The stock market is very friendly. People are watching it all the time. People do not expect me to sell stock—I enjoy that.”

No one replies.

“I am not random; the things I do and say differ. The people I talk to tell me secrets. I am a relatable figure. The last time I was here I slept over. The economy is very important to me.”

No one replies. I look down at the body, the dead cog. I look down at the body and I spit on the dead cog. He is nothing to me but he makes me sad. His blood is his shit and his shit is his brain, which is small. My brain is small. I use my brain efficiently, I make money with my brain even though it is small. These people with small brains but no money make me sad, he makes me sad. People with big brains inevitably work as cogs, people with small brains die as failed cogs. He failed himself and his small brain. I think secretly those with big brains like working against themselves, like satisfying Wall Street though they oppose it. I publicly oppose nothing. The horde will try to consume you and make your feelings rich and poor, it is all a series of steps. There is a goal. The big-brained beatniks steal from their own mental ilk. Their minds are big but misused—used in artistic endeavors, used in creativity.

Creativity, entertainment, art—these are all colossal wastes of the mind. These things are taken by me and my associates, and they are turned into business. Business is the mind. Business is the only use of the mind. Creativity, entertainment, and art are all wastes of a large brain because they do not make money. They do, however, make money. The artist does not. The artist makes the art—that is what they do with their big brain. I make the money off the art—that is what I do with my small brain. They use their medium and I use mine. The only difference between our mediums is that mine helps the economy. Mine is the economy. Art is the final frontier for artifice—art is artifice. That is why it’s so easily manipulated by me, by those who make money.

I leave the body where it sits and go outside and smoke one cigarette. I only smoke cigarettes because they cannot advertise cigarettes anymore. Advertisements don’t work on me, I don’t watch them, read them, or allow myself to see them with my grandfather’s eyes. I love advertising—that is the true art, though the so-called ‘artists’ of today will convince you it is the death of art. It is art in essence—a sort of poetry that entices and entrances. Out of its labor comes economic stability. I like that. But I understand it all too well, and it doesn’t work on me. I stop smoking the cigarette as soon as I start because I don’t smoke. Cigarettes are bad for the body. I keep my body in pristine condition. I will be old like my grandfather was. On his death bed he was day trading. He made smart investments up until his last breath. He is very moving to me.

I killed the man in the classroom with the stick I found atop the metal frame of the dry-erase board. I beat his head in with the stick. I did not smile and I did not weep. He was my father. My father did not like my grandfather, did not agree with my grandfather’s philosophy. He did not believe in dollars and cents. He had no mind. He was a teacher. He taught the children fine arts and he fed their ears with lies about the world. He injected tiny microcosms of anarchy. They were fed lies about the importance of money. They were told that money wasn’t important, they were told that the economy is a lie made up by the elite, they were told that success is relative. Success is only relative to those who wish to differentiate between great success and greater success. Success is not relative. Success is success and failure is failure.

My father was a failure and I killed him with a yardstick. He cannot teach the children these evils—anti-business evils. These ideals oppose my existence and I must squash them like bugs when they appear before me. I did not kill my father soon because of weak sentimentality, I have been plagued by sentimentality in the past. I have been married, I have had a child. I do not have a wife and child anymore. I do not have a father anymore. The figures I idolize are few and far between, my grandfather and Dale Carnegie being the only two that regularly come to mind. My father hated Dale Carnegie. I hate my father. My father taught me things anti-ethical to who I am. My father told me things about the government I didn’t like to hear. I don’t care what the government does that’s wrong, I don’t care what they do at all as long as the economy is well.

The economy isn’t always doing well. When it’s doing poorly I feel very at odds with the world. I get very depressed, I’m very depressed now. The economy isn’t doing well. I’m very sad. I’m suicidal. I’m not suicidal—suicide is for lower ilk than me. I’m angry. My father is dead. I killed him with a yardstick. Ha-ha. I would kill him again, but I would not dare look at him. I could see the cysts on his face with my grandfather’s eyes. My grandfather’s eyes aren’t ideal. They aren’t amazing eyes, but I respect my grandfather more than anyone and I dug him up and got his eyes and I kissed them and I put them in the two holes in my head. The doctors put them there, not me. They didn’t like the idea. I told them I don’t care what they think of the idea.

My father used to spend his time planting flowers in his backyard. I’m going to get in my car and drive to his house and destroy the flowers, thereby destroying the memory of my father and destroying everything he loves. His love for the unimportant both astounded and enraged me. He has no love now. I will piss on the plants and step on them. I want to cry but I don’t allow myself to. I’m depressed. The money isn’t flowing the way I like it to. I’m getting in my car—beautiful car. I don’t know anything about cars or types of cars. It makes me look important. I hate it. I hate cars. It makes me look important and it’s beautiful.

On my way to my father’s house I see a lemonade stand so I swerve my car into it. I almost hit a child standing behind the stand. Wood and cardboard goes flying everywhere, and the soft crunch of the glass containers of lemonade sounds good to my ears. The child’s money lines his pocket. He’ll spend the money on movies or drugs. The money needs to funnel into me or it is not real money. The economy is only the economy if I’m the economy. I’m the economy. I’m everything. I’m Wall Street. I get out of my car and grab a slab of wood and beat the rest of the lemonade stand senseless with it. The kid goes running, screaming his head off. “Mommy! Mommy!” Who cares.

I get back in my car and honk the horn for no reason. I’m angry. I drive really fast, as fast as I can go and I pull into my father’s front yard, driving over all the bushes in front of his house. Then I get out of my car and I start kicking the fence gate with my foot. The gate goes crashing down—more wood flying all around. I pull out my cock and start pissing on the flowers while I walk around his garden stomping. Piss is getting all over my pants and my hands. I’m killing this dumb stretch of nature.

My father isn’t watching this from beyond, but I wish he were. I want him to see his flowers getting pissed on and stomped on. I want to kill him but I’ve already killed him. I’m really upset. I go back to my car and see the lemonade stand child approaching with his parents. His father is dressed in sweatpants. Bum. I could kill him. I want him dead. I hate him. He yells some things and curses me. Who cares. I get in my car and reverse it, hitting his shin. He curses me some more. I take off. Fuck that guy.

I scream while I drive down my father’s street. One long, continuous scream. I do that so I don’t cry. Crying is an unnecessary expression of a feeling I don’t particularly care for. Being sad is not productive, so I will not allow myself to express it in that way. I could kill that kid’s father. I wish I did, but I didn’t because I’m too weak. I would get in trouble and the economy would be nothing without me. I am the American dream and the American dream would be nothing without me. That son of a bitch, I could kill that guy.